Floating on the Edge
by msgone
Summary: Unable to escape his prison, Neal is injured and stranded. Will Peter find him in time? rated for content and language
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: I do not own White Collar or any of its characters. This is just a bit of fun that I earn nothing for besides smiles and comments. This is unbeted, any mistakes are mine._

Floating on the Edge

Chapter 1

There was a warm dreamlike quality to Neal's conscious, like he was inner tubing down a river on a lazy, sunny day. He could live here in this bliss. Nothing to worry him, no one to bother him. It wasn't until that thought that he tried to open his eyes. The dreamlike state he was in reminded him too much of being drugged. Forcing his eyes open he was expecting to see a hospital room, not this. He closed his eyes again, willing the sight before him to change, but it wasn't meant to be. It wasn't a dream or a nightmare. Neal was propped up against a wall, in the corner of a metal room. Darkness lived in this area he was in, but there was an occasional brightness of light coming from the hallway. The world was tilted and he couldn't move but he wasn't bound either. He wondered at how he arrived in this place and came up with nothing. In his current condition he hoped that he wasn't alone.

Long minutes went by and Neal was almost asleep again when voices coming from the hall woke him. A man and woman were arguing, turning into a woman pleading. There was a twang and a thunk, then silence. Dragging, that was the sound now. Neal's breath hitched when a solid figure stood in the doorway. There was a man there, dragging a woman by her hair into the room with him. Neal wanted to pull his legs to his chest and wrap his arms around them. He still couldn't move. He felt his heart rate pick up, it wasn't long before he was convinced it was going to beat out of his chest.

"Neal Caffrey…" the man drug out his name like he was testing its sound on his tongue. "I should have shot you before I was arrested." There was a metal tinking coming from the hand that Neal could see. A long cylindrical metal object taping on the wall. "You know, hunting really isn't given the credit it deserves."

The man walked forward, continuing to drag his unresponsive partner. Suddenly, the man dropped the woman close to Neal. With the lights out, he still couldn't see who the woman was or the man talking to him.

"There are those that hunt in a despicable and unsportsmanlike way." His voice was smooth and melodic as he spoke reverently about his passion. "They drug a caged animal before releasing it. It's usually only done with the animals that are considered dangerous." Neal heard the man's knees pop as he crouched down in front of him. "I think you're dangerous," he continued, "you're a chameleon, that makes you more dangerous than most."

There was a knock on his head, two of them. Neal was caught between wanting to roll his eyes because of the theatrics and being scared to death that this was really it. The ability to talk and move taken from him made him lean toward the latter. Comprehension donned on him a moment later when he realized what the metal object was that was to carelessly being beat on everything. It was an arrow. Hunter…

"Before you entertain the notion of getting the upper hand, or getting out of this position before I'm ready for you to, please, pay attention to your left. Right now, you only know this is a woman. You have no idea if you knew her, or if she was some random person I grabbed to scare you. Let me remove any doubt for you."

Neal waited for the light to come on, but nothing happened. Then suddenly there was light. It illuminated the face of his abductor as none other than Van Horne and unfortunately allowed him to see who was sacrificed because of him. Neal made a strangled noise when he saw her face. His angel, his saving grace. The only person to ever give Neal a chance without wanting anything in return had an arrow through her heart. June. He felt his heart shatter and didn't realize that it could still do that. He thought that when Kate died it took those feelings away from him. He didn't know he could care that much for someone again.

"Good, I see that the drugs are starting to wear off. You still won't feel anything for a while, but I am going to leave you with a couple parting gifts." Van Horne cupped Neal's face and used his thumb to wipe away some of Neal's tears. "These are but the first of many tears to come, I'm afraid. You thought that you could make a deal with the FBI and that there would be no penalty for turning your back on your former life." Van Horne was now close enough to kiss. "You were wrong. This is your penance for thinking yourself above the rest of us."

With that parting bit of information Van Horne reached into his pocket and pulled out a tracking anklet. "Once I put this on you our time will be cut significantly shorter. This is your first gift. This ship that we are currently on is sinking. That's why we are tilted. You still have about three hours before you'll be able to move. There is only about four hours before this ship sinks, unless I miscalculated."

He took the tracker and placed it on Neal's ankle. It immediately turned the light red and sent a shock through Neal's leg. When Neal was shocked he looked away from Van Horne. He didn't get a chance to look back up at him before he heard another thunk, and saw an arrow and a green laser site in his shoulder. It was strange seeing an arrow in his shoulder. Stranger still was the fact that he couldn't feel it. At some point Van Horne had changed Neal's clothes. He was back in the Navy dress whites and was watching the blood drip out of his shoulder.

"I guess I can be satisfied with this. You have a very narrow window for getting off the ship before it sinks. This is your second gift. Your feeling will come back before you're able to move, so you'll have time to think about your pain." Smiling Van Horne crouched down again and pressed against Neal's wound. "It looks like you have a broken collar bone. Nasty wound that one. Let's hope that the FBI still thinks that you're a valuable asset and gets here to help you before it's too late."

Van Horne got up and walked away from Neal and out the door. Dazedly, Neal wondered when Super Villains became real and hoped Super Heroes were real too, otherwise he was massively screwed.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Thank you all for your kind words and support.. It means more than you know.. I'm not as confident with this end of story, please be patient. As always, I don't own White Collar or any of its characters, I'm just taking them out on a stroll._

Floating on the Edge

Chapter 2

 _Two hours ago_

"Hon, make sure you tell Neal he's coming to dinner tonight."

El walked up behind Peter and threw her arms around him. Peter was in his underclothes getting ready for his day. Currently that involved the sink and a tooth brush. He rolled his eyes and Elizabeth slapped his ass. She tried to walk away from him, but he smirked and hugged her close. With toothpaste all over his mouth and chin he leaned in to give her the mother of all messy kisses. El dodged her face away every time he leaned in but he got in a lucky swipe and proceeded to wipe the toothpaste all over her face.

"Peter!" she screeched indignantly, then she joined him in his laughter.

A few minutes later had Peter kissing his wife goodbye and heading out to go pick Neal up for work. His spirits were such that he decided to stop on the way to treat himself and Neal to a decent cup of coffee. He pulled up right next to the mansion and waited a few minutes drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel. An uneasy feeling started to gnaw at him the longer he sat there. Peter took out his cell phone and called Neal's cell. Normally Neal would pick up within just a couple rings, but this time it went all the way to voicemail. He called once more with the same results.

Peter Burke got out of his car with a frown on his face. It wasn't like Neal to ignore a call from him. With a long sigh he walked up the steps. Unsurprisingly the gate was open so he walked to the front door and rang the doorbell. No one came, so he rang it again. Peter lifted his hand and knocked on the door and it swung slowly open. Alarmed, Peter's training kicked in and he drew his gun. Neal never said if June was out of town or not, but one of the people that worked there should have been readily available to answer the door. Peter started to clear the rooms like it was a crime scene, which after a couple rooms found out that it was. June's staff were bound in the kitchen, each with a black bag over their heads. They were lined up on their knees, all slumped over, all with blood dripping from the bags. The state of the blood that coated the floor indicated that this happened some time ago. Peter pulled out his cell phone and called for backup at Neal's place, then he sprinted up the stairs to Neal's apartment.

"NEAL!" he shouted as he climbed. "Please, don't be there," he whispered as he closed his eyes and opened Neal's door the rest of the way.

Looking around Neal's studio revealed that Neal was in fact, not there, but he had been. From the looks of things, there had been a hell of a fight. The doors to the balcony were broken in, not out, so this was the point of entry. Neal's bed was a mess, covers strewn on the floor, a couple of dining chairs were broken, lamps turned over. Neal didn't go peacefully, that much was certain. Peter wanted to preserve the scene, but he couldn't help but pour through the things that were lying about.

Peter took a few steps into the room and noticed there were blood droplets leading from the dining table to the door. They kept going down the stairs. He walked to the table and saw a chair leg on the floor with a small area of it covered in blood. This must have been used to knock Neal into submission. Peter ran his hand through his hair and down his face. At least an hour had passed since everything took place. Probably longer ago than that if they caught Neal still in bed.

An hour later had Peter sitting in the conference room with Diana and Jones.

"What do you mean the tracker isn't broadcasting?" Peter practically snarled on the phone. The marshals weren't making this problem any easier by blaming Neal for the issue. He hung up the phone and addressed his subordinates.

"It looks like a key was used to remove it," Peter sighed, "We need to find Neal before the marshals do. They are convinced that he staged the whole thing to skip out on us."

Diana lifted her cell phone to her ear, and hung up quickly. "Boss, the coroner's office just called. They say that the victims' time of death was approximately 4 hours ago."

Peter picked up an evidence bag that contained a piece of a blade. It was found in the broken glass in front of the balcony doors. There was also a photo of the open sea.

"Peter!" Jones called. "Caffrey's tracking data is coming back up."

"What the hell is this? There are three signals." Peter scrubbed his face with his hand. "Only Neal, only Neal."

"Boss, what do we do? Only one of these can be right." Diana said as she dropped into one of the seats in at the conference table.

"We need to find out what's at these locations." Peter pulled the computer closer to him. "We're probably going to need to split up on this one. I don't trust anyone on this but us."

"Peter, do really think that's a good idea? These locations are several miles from each other." Jones pointed out. "Any _one_ of us could get into serious trouble on our own."

"Well, we'll just have to be extra careful. I don't think that Neal has a whole lot of time. These people obviously aren't afraid to kill, and from the looks of things, they've got a score to settle with Neal. I need someone to find June." Peter paced along in front of the windows. "Jones, dig into Neal's past, our former arrests, anyone that could have a grudge against him. Diana look into these locations."

Only a few minutes passed from when Peter left the room to when he came back. "Okay, we have approval, did we learn anything?"

"One of the signals is coming from Arthur Kill, another is upstate off the coast, and the last one is out in the ocean. The last one is moving. It's slow, but it's moving." Diana drummed her fingers on the table.

Jones sat back in his chair, "Well, Caffrey's got a lot of unknown, or unconfirmed associates, so that list is incomplete, even for us. Most everyone that we've arrested is where they are supposed to be. With the exception of Rebecca and Hagen. Keller is still at large, and Bennet's in the wind."

Peter wasn't happy with that news. "Let's get the Harvard Crew to keep searching that end." He sighed, "Let's go with what we have. Diana, I want you to check out upstate, Jones, go to the graveyard, I'll head out to our mobile island."

"Boss, you're going to need a SAT phone. There's no signal out that far."

Peter just smiled and indulgent smile, "I think I've got that bit covered. Let's get moving, I'll call when I've got the phone so you have the number."


End file.
